Infrastructure

A new bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives could accelerate the hiring process for federal pipeline inspectors.

TransCanada Corp. has completed acquiring all government permits to lay the jumbo northern pipeline required by the Asian entry in the lineup of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal projects on the Pacific Coast of British Columbia.

Duke Energy plans to buy its Charlotte, NC, neighbor and Atlantic Coast Pipeline project partner Piedmont Natural Gas in a $4.9 billion cash deal that it said would give it “a growing natural gas platform.” Including debt, the value of the deal is $6.7 billion.

Algonquin Gas Transmission LLC and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline LLC on Thursday filed at FERC for their Atlantic Bridge Project, which would “provide much needed supply diversity and reliability in the Northeast markets,” they said.

Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC has filed at FERC for its 301-mile project to transport up to 2 million Dth/d of Appalachian gas to serve markets in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, as well as in Appalachia.

The midstream segment is not quite as immune to the commodity price downturn as Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) investors might have hoped. The company has retreated from an earlier pledge of 10% dividend growth as third quarter earnings missed analyst expectations.

Investors have grown wary of midstream master limited partnerships (MLP), selling off their stakes and raising questions about how the downturn in oil and gas prices could weaken what was recently thought of as a resilient space.

As the Nov. 1 official start of winter approached, two new outlets for Appalachian gas were given the go-ahead Thursday to start-up service for Northeastern deliveries.

FERC has rejected a proposal by Algonquin Gas Transmission LLC to allow some of its firm transportation customers to convert some or all of their service to no-notice firm service, but it left the door open for the company to submit a revised filing on the matter.